--- On Mon, 6/30/08, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
"Looking beyond Obama, the hopeful expectations awakened by his campaign, coupled with the current crises in US foreign and domestic policy, may portend a new era of change in US politics"
Seems like the "hopeful expectations" awakened by Obama, and the "crises of domestic and foreign policy", are pulling in opposite directions, and the warlike impulse is likely to swamp any progressive ones.
BW
As for the "crises in foreign policy"
> From: Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] sprinting rightward
> To: "LBO-Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Monday, June 30, 2008, 3:54 PM
> Turbulo wrote:
>
> >The choice is not
> > between a party of reform and a party of stasis, but
> between a party of
> > fast-track capitalist attack, and one of slower-track
> attack. But both
> > are on the attack, and neither is a means of defense
> or a "salient
> > starting point" for anything but further defeats.
> =======================================
> Since the demise of the socialist and communist parties
> committed to public
> ownership, and the effective lack of same throughout US
> political history,
> when has the choice for voters not been between two
> capitalist parties - one
> liberal and the other conservative?
>
> You make it sound as if the Democrats, the party of the
> liberal bourgeoisie,
> were at one time a genuine party of reform which at some
> unspecified point
> became a party of "stasis". It's never been
> either one or the other for the
> better part of the past century. It's oscillated
> between the two poles,
> depending on the nature of the historical period it was
> passing through.
>
> When the economy is expanding and the political situation
> is stable, its
> reforms are modest and often hidden from public view,
> mostly limited to
> liberal appointments to the judiciary and regulatory
> agencies. When there
> are systemic crises to be addressed and it is under
> pressure to act from its
> members and the social constituencies which they represent,
> it undertakes
> more visible structural reforms. The Democratic party is,
> in short, a much
> more contradictory political formation than the Republican
> party. It's based
> on the unions and the various social protest organizations
> and it can't
> wholly ignore their demands - particularly when they take
> to the streets in
> a deepening crisis - even though the party leadership iis
> ultimately
> accountable to Capital. The DP is akin to contemporary
> social democratic
> parties elsewhere, which rest on the same social base and
> are equally
> pro-capitalist - opposing the parties to their right from
> the standpoint of
> what a "modernizing" capitalism requires. They
> identify this as going some
> way to meet - rather than repress - the demands of their
> supporters, as, for
> example, with respect to trade union rights, improved
> labour conditions,
> health care, public education, unemployment relief, social
> security,
> prohibitions against discrimination, etc.
>
> I'm not unduly optimistic about the prospects for
> change in an Obama
> administration, particularly as there are no comparable
> organizations to the
> trade unions of the 30s or the civil rights movement of the
> 60s to drive
> that process forward. But I'm not so overwhelmed by the
> past three decades
> of worldwide capitalist advance and working class retreat
> that I'm ready to
> completely throw in the towel and rule out the possibility
> of any meaningful
> change, as you seem to be. Looking beyond Obama, the
> hopeful expectations
> awakened by his campaign, coupled with the current crises
> in US foreign and
> domestic policy, may portend a new era of change in US
> politics. We'll see.
> I'm much less confident about predicting the future
> than I once was - one
> way or the other.
>
>
>
>
>
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